Salon.com Life | We all die alone We all die alone
News flash: Having children won't save you from a lonely old age.
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By Laura Miller
May 9, 2003 ?|? The reader who inspired this series confessed to feeling "a little appalled" at finding herself calculating the "return on investment" in parenthood: "Are there any laws that require my children to pay for my nursing home when I am old after I have given up hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary to stay home with them while they are children? Are they going to be a sufficient hedge against poverty and loneliness in old age? Sure, being old is bad ... but do children make it any better?"
Many people would be more than a little appalled to see this kind of cost-benefit analysis applied to what they consider a relationship founded on love. But the truth is that for much of human history and in most undeveloped nations today, children (and other relatives) have always been a "hedge" against poverty and other disasters. That doesn't mean their parents don't also love them; they just don't see love and necessity as mutually exclusive.
But for a young, Western, professional woman, like the letter writer, who makes good money and is likely to make even more if her career continues uninterrupted, the idea of children as flesh-and-blood 401K accounts is fiscally daft. Anyone smart enough to be making that much money should know that, too. After all, you can get a real 401K that actually is legally required to pay out when you need it -- abundantly, if you funnel into it all the cash you'd otherwise spend on raising kids. And you can get long term care insurance if you're really worried about affording that nursing home.
posted by Beauxbeaux's Daddy at 9:39 PM 
Friday, May 09, 2003
